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Wright Scores a Pair to Send Craftsbury Into the 2nd Round

CRAFTSBURY–Iva Wright had two second half goals to lead the Craftsbury Lady Chargers as they defeated the Danville Indians 4-2 in the opening round of the Division IV play-offs."We did really well today and played as a team," said Craftsbury coach Ashley Maxfield. "Plus it helps when we can play with more than one sub," she added with a chuckle.When play got underway on Wednesday afternoon, Craftsbury was ready to go.Melanie Sergiev was leading the attack, heading down the left side of the field trying to through balls into the center of the pitch.For the first ten minutes of play they just could not get close to the Danville cage, but then something clicked, and the balls started to get inside.Meghan Pennock sent the ball to Sergiev, and Melanie's shot handcuffed Danville's Dani Cochran and went off of her hands and in between her legs as the Academy was up 1-0."It is all about timing, keeping your head up and knowing where people are," Melanie said about the goal.It did not take Craftsbury long to stretch the lead to two, because less than a minute later, the Lady Chargers struck again.The principals were the same as the first goal, but the roles were reversed.Melanie had the ball at the edge of the 18 and she lobbed the ball to the center where Meghan was waiting.Pennock settled the ball and and fired it in from point blank range.From that point on the half was much more even.Danville started to press, and the results was multiple corner kicks, but nothing came of them.Going the other way, Pennock and Cochran had a near collision at the Indian 18 when they were both racing for a loose ball. Dani won the race and cleared the ball out of the area, nearly taking Meghan's head with it.Sergiev had a strong individual effort to get another scoring opportunity, but Cochran denied her on this occasion.During the final ten minutes Craftsbury started to look tired and a bit flat, which allowed the Danville press to grow in strength.Brianna Sinclair finally was able to crack the Academy's defense and get one past goalie Emma Spiese with about four minutes remaining on the clock.Danville came close to tying it on multiple occasions in the final four minutes, but they could not and the two headed into the half with the host Lady Chargers ahead 2-1.One thing that was hurting Craftsbury is that their defenders kept getting knocked hurt, and they would have to head off of the field.Already playing with a short bench, the injuries forced coach Maxfield to move players all over the field, disrupting the early flow that the blue and white had going for them.One defender who stayed strong was Meghan Brown, who has missed a lot of time this year due to injuries."This is the third game in a row where Meghan played a whole game, and it was really nice having her back there," said Maxfield.But Craftsbury would get their groove back in the second.Six minutes into half number two, Iva Wright converted Sergiev's pass to restore the two goal advantage.After a couple of nice saves by Spiese, Wright tallied again, this time on a Amy DeLaBruere rebound.The remainder of the half saw both teams have some great looks, especially Craftsbury, who twice missed an open net that was just begging to have a ball put into it.Danville would find one more hole in Spiese's armor, as Kyla Boutin scored with twenty-one seconds left in the match, bringing the final score to 4-2 in favor of the Lady Chargers.Said Sergiev on the win," We didn't think we were going to beat them because we heard they played a lot of Division Two schools, but today we wanted it more."Spiese finished the game with 9 saves, while Cochran had 12.Craftsbury will play the winner of Black River-Long Trail School at 2:00 on Saturday.